Always up for tweaking the breathless blogging that passes for technology journalism in Silicon Valley, ValleyWag this week offered to put up some real money if anyone could provide concrete evidence of the tablet computer that most Apple watchers expect CEO Steve Jobs to unveil at a Jan. 27 press happening in San Francisco.
“We’ve had enough of trying to follow all the speculation around Apple’s impending tablet,” ValleyWag’s Gabriel Snyder wrote in a blog post announcing the Apple Tablet Scavenger Hunt. “If you can find the first genuine photos, video or — the holy grail — the actual messiah machine itself before then and they’re exclusive to us, we’ll give you a cash prize.” The post offered $10,000 for bona-fide pictures, $20,000 for videos, $50,000 for images of Steve Jobs using the device, and $100,000 “to let us play with it for an hour.”
After receiving a cease-and-desist letter from the Silicon Valley law firm of Orrick, Huntington and Sutcliffe, ValleyWag has declared the firm the winner of the contest, saying the letter confirms the existence of the tablet.
Illegal Inducement?
“You call this the ‘scavenger hunt,'” but Apple calls it “offering a bounty for the theft of Apple’s trade secrets,” attorney Michael C. Spillner wrote. “Such an offer is illegal and Apple insists that you immediately discontinue the scavenger hunt.”
ValleyWag’s tongue-in-cheek response: The letter “is the most concrete evidence (from Apple itself, no less!) yet that there may indeed be a tablet in the works. Granted, it’s no photo of Steve Jobs holding his heavenly device himself (prize: $50,000), but we do feel like it merits some kind of reward,” Snyder wrote. The site claims it sent Spillner his reward: a DVD of Legally Blonde 2, a $25 Zune Marketplace gift card, and a “fabulous set of steak knives!”
Far from agreeing to…